In 1849, Henry Mayhew (1812–1887)
was asked by the Morning Chronicle to
be the metropolitan correspondent for its
series "Labour and the Poor." His
interviews with workers and with street folk
convey a vivid sense of the lives of London's
poor.

I
make moleskin trowsers. I get 7d. and 8d.
>>note 1 per
pair. I can do two pairs in a day, and
twelve, when there is full employment,
in a week. But some weeks I have no work
at all. I work from six in the morning
to ten at night; that is what I call my
day's work. When I am fully employed
I get from 7s. to 8s. a week. My expenses
out of that for twist, thread, and candles
are about ls. 6d. a week, leaving me about
6s. a week clear. But there's coals
to pay for out of this, and that's
at the least 6d. more; so 5s. 6d. is the
very outside of what I earn when I'm
in full work. Taking one week with another,
all the year round, I don't make above
3s. clear money each week. I don't
work at any other kind of slop work.
>>note 2 The
trowsers work is held to be the best paid of all. I give ls. a week rent.
My father died when I was five years of age. My mother is a widow, upwards
of 66 years of age, and seldom has a day's work. Generally once in the
week she is employed pot-scouring — that is, cleaning publicans'
>>note 3 pots.
She is paid 4d. a dozen for that, and does about four dozen and a half, so
that she gets about ls. 6d. in the day by it. For the rest she is dependent
upon me. I am twenty years of age the 25th of this month. We earn together,
to keep the two of us, from 4s. 6d. to 5s. each week. Out of this we have
to pay ls. rent and there remains 3s. 6d. to 4s. to find us both in food
and clothing. It is of course impossible for us to live upon it, and the
consequence is, I am obligated to go a bad way. I have been three years working
at slop work. I was virtuous when I first went to work, and I remained so
till this last twelvemonth. I struggled very hard to keep myself chaste,
but I found that I couldn't get food and clothing for myself and mother;
so I took to live with a young man. He is turned twenty. He is a tinman.
>>note 4 He
did promise to marry me but his sister made mischief between me and him;
so that parted us. I have not seen him now for about six months and I can't
say whether he will keep his promise or not. I am now pregnant by him, and
expect to be confined in two months' time. He knows of my situation,
and so does my mother. My mother believed me to be married to him. She knows
otherwise now. I was very fond of him, and had known him for two years before
he seduced me. He could make 14s. a week. He told me if I came to live with
him he'd take care I shouldn't want, and both mother and me had been
very bad off before. He said too, he'd make me his lawful wife, but I
hardly cared so long as I could get food for myself and mother. Many young
girls at the shop advised me to go wrong. They told me how comfortable they
was off; they said they could get plenty to eat and drink, and good clothes.
There isn't one young girl as can get her living by slop work. I am satisfied
there is not one young girl that works at slop work that is virtuous, and
there are some thousands in the trade. They may do very well if they have
got mothers and fathers to find them a home and food, and to let them have
what they earn for clothes; then they may be virtuous, but not without. I've
heard of numbers who have gone from slop work to the streets altogether for
a living, and I shall be obligated to do the same thing myself, unless something
better turns up for me. If I was never allowed to speak no more, it was the
little money I got by my labour that caused me to go wrong. Could I have
honestly earned enough to have subsisted upon, to find me in proper food
and clothing, such as is necessary, I should not have gone astray; no never!
As it was, I fought against it as long as I could — that I did — to
the last. I know how horrible all this is. It would have been much better
for me to have subsisted upon a dry crust and water rather than be as I am
now. But no one knows the temptations of us poor girls in want. Gentlefolks
can never understand it. If I had been born a lady, it wouldn't have
been very hard to have acted like one. To be poor and to be honest, especially
with young girls, is the hardest struggle of all. There isn't one in
a thousand that can get the better of it. I am ready to say again, that it
was want, and nothing more, that made me transgress. If I had been better
paid I should have done better. Young as I am, my life is a curse to me.
If the Almighty would please to take me before my child is born, I should
die happy.